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Good grief, which part of Europe are you from ... Concretia? Even in the UK we describe our normal building habit as "sticks n bricks" and there are a lot of s

Good grief, which part of Europe are you from ... Concretia? Even in the UK we describe our normal building habit as "sticks n bricks" and there are a lot of sticks. Under my feet, right now, there are wooden joists and a plywood subfloor. I live on a hill. Some ground floor (first floor) rooms have solid conc. sub floors but the other half has the usual (1930s) two foot cavity, involving brick piers on conc raft and wooden joists to slap the floor across. We still have a large stock of wattle and daub cottages with thatched roof too. Every other country in Europe I have ever visited has rather a lot of wooden buildings in it too. I lived in West Germany for some years, for example. Sticks and bricks lends itself to an environment with plenty of mud and fewer trees. It is quite brittle so no earthquakes thank you. The UK's largest recent earthquake was basically a knee trembler.

Theodores 3y ago
That will be the shires then! I have never heard the phrase 'sticks n bricks'. That is technical parlance. Nobody in the history of Eastenders has used that phrase. It is true that there are wattle and daub houses but it is the one thatched roof cottage that you notice next to the busy A road, not the thousands of semis in the neighbouring estates. In Glasgow there are large parts of the city where only some doors are made of wood. Everything else is concrete, steel, plastic and glass. These are 'closes' (apartments) which is different to the English 'close' (street). I am not sure wood would work for 'closes'. London has a lot of wood, but so much of London might as well be from Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London'. Landlords do not spend money so those sash windows and wooden floors are there for an eternity. West Germany has far better housing stock with details such as windows that close.
wongarsu 3y ago
Modern German buildings are mostly concrete blocks/CMUs with concrete subfloors and wood mostly used to carry the roof. But of course that's a somewhat recent development, sometime in the first half of the 20th century. Before that there was a lot of brick with wooden floors, and before that either stone with wooden subfloor or wooden frames filled with clay. Of course this is somewhat region dependent, and wood is definitely making a comeback again

Theodores 3y ago

That will be the shires then! I have never heard the phrase 'sticks n bricks'. That is technical parlance. Nobody in the history of Eastenders has used that phrase. It is true that there are wattle and daub houses but it is the one thatched roof cottage that you notice next to the busy A road, not the thousands of semis in the neighbouring estates. In Glasgow there are large parts of the city where only some doors are made of wood. Everything else is concrete, steel, plastic and glass. These are 'closes' (apartments) which is different to the English 'close' (street). I am not sure wood would work for 'closes'. London has a lot of wood, but so much of London might as well be from Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London'. Landlords do not spend money so those sash windows and wooden floors are there for an eternity. West Germany has far better housing stock with details such as windows that close.

wongarsu 3y ago

Modern German buildings are mostly concrete blocks/CMUs with concrete subfloors and wood mostly used to carry the roof. But of course that's a somewhat recent development, sometime in the first half of the 20th century. Before that there was a lot of brick with wooden floors, and before that either stone with wooden subfloor or wooden frames filled with clay. Of course this is somewhat region dependent, and wood is definitely making a comeback again